I've been thinking, and I'd really like Ghost to be the main villain in IM4. He could be a background villain, seemingly a henchman to whoever's out front (Hammer, Blizzard etc.) then, toward the end of the second act, have him betray and kill (for maximum impact) the main villain, and have him reveal his own motives. Have him cold and completely unlikable, and he could be the first great IM movie villain.

Ghost is so awesome. He's gotta be included, he's an incredible fight scene waiting to happen with some pretty awesome psychoses. His ability to create uber-stealth armor, and that ability/tech being mega-manned by Stark makes for a great arc/story.

Madame Masque provides a great foil to Tony, and works well as a romantic interest. Having Count Nefaria as a sick powered individual in the background works well as a follow up to the whole MCU Extremis powers issue. Hiring Ghost as her muscle, even if he betrays her, works for a great storyline... especially if that was her plan all along.

Do you think the title will be "Iron Man 4" or will they start to use subtitles like all the rest of the characters?

I would imagine that Iron Man 4 will have a subtitle instead of the sequel numeral. This would both keep it in line with the Marvel Studios subtitle trend for sequels while also distancing the film slightly from RDJ's Iron Man trilogy (since it's a safe bet that Tony Stark will be recast for IM4).

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What about a War Machine spin-off?

It's looking pretty doubtful at this point, I think. There's so many fresh characters that could be introduced in those coveted film slots...Rhodey is probably best utilized in the Iron Man (maybe even Avengers) films.

Yeeeah, definitely get Ezekiel Stane in I think. Gives us a link to the first movie (maybe finally explaining the whole story of the ten rings) plus we could get one of the lesser armoured villains in as a henchman.

Ezekiel Stane and the Mandarin's return (Killian) are defenitelly things i hope to see in one of the next Iron Man movies, with all the events going on and RDJ probably being recast i think they should start to make the character more mature, this way the next actor doesn't need to try to be the quirky RDJ Tony Stark and can instead be more like his comic book version, while still keeping traces of the old Tony Stark of course.

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Originally Posted by childeroland

Plenty of male-led action films fail, yet the actors' gender is not blamed. Why should it be different for women? Especially since far more male-led action films are made than female-led action films?

Yeah, Zeke Stane looking for revenge and the Mandarin looking for cleaning his name. Both of them are escellent picks.

The Mandarin still has the same problems he did before, he is a villain who many see as a ethnic stereotype and would be a hard sell to the Chinese market. Also for someone who supposed to be Iron Man's greatest villain, most of the great Iron Man stories do not involve him and there is no real interesting dynamics in their rivalry.

The Mandarin still has the same problems he did before, he is a villain who many see as a ethnic stereotype and would be a hard sell to the Chinese market. Also for someone who supposed to be Iron Man's greatest villain, most of the great Iron Man stories do not involve him and there is no real interesting dynamics in their rivalry.

yeah but he's all Stark's got. he's the only Iron Man villain with the potential to be on the Red Skull or Loki's level. and ruthlessness shouldn't be an ethnic stereotype. if we're just talking about his look, that can change. nothing says that he has to wear a long flowing robe or a long mustache. he just has to be asian and be someone who could believabl kick Iron Man's rear. maybe he could, phenotypically, look asian but be a mishmash of several conquerors/generals of several cultures (like Serpentor). and you balance it out by having chinese heroes in the movie; alongside Tony.

yeah but he's all Stark's got. he's the only Iron Man villain with the potential to be on the Red Skull or Loki's level. and ruthlessness shouldn't be an ethnic stereotype. if we're just talking about his look, that can change. nothing says that he has to wear a long flowing robe or a long mustache. he just has to be asian and be someone who could believabl kick Iron Man's rear. maybe he could, phenotypically, look asian but be a mishmash of several conquerors/generals of several cultures (like Serpentor). and you balance it out by having chinese heroes in the movie; alongside Tony.

I think a Chinese villain will be a hard sell in Mainland China no matter what and was created as a Yellow Peril villain, so its been hard for him to completely remove that element from him.

I could get beyond that, if I thought Mandarin was an interesting character, but he isn't. Whenever people here talk about the Mandarin, they always talk about archetypical stuff, his fighting ability or scientific genius, but they never talk deeper character stuff: Why does he want to talk over the world? What kind of moral boundaries does he have if any? Does he have a sense of honor or is he just a pure evil monster? Why is he Iron Man's arch nemesis instead of any other hero out there?

That is the big problem with Mandarin, he has no consistent personality, is it hard for him to be an effective foil for Iron Man. Sometimes he is anti technology and sometimes he isn't, sometimes he has a noble foe with a sense of honor, other times he is a pure evil monster. So what is the Mandarin exactly?

He is such an archetype, that I can make him into a Captain America foe and barely change anything. I find there is no real interesting dynamic between Iron Man and Mandarin and they have been at this for 50 years, you think they could have given their rivalry some sort of depth or emotional resonance.

At least guys like Ra's Al Ghul and Magneto have a consistent ideology they use to justify their quests for world domination, I have no idea what Mandarin's deal is and why he wants to take over the world.

I think Spymaster has managed to hurt Tony more when killed happy Hogan.

The writers really try harder with this guy, he already has a few strikes against him due his dubious origins, so changing his personality story to story is not helping him.

The thing is, Whiplash in Iron Man 2 was a combination of Whiplash and the Crimson Dynamo, Vanko was the surname of the first Crimson Dynamo. I'm not sure how they can they can have the Crimson Dynamo in a movie, without making him seem redundant.

Simple, as i suggested before, add in Titanium Man and Radioactive Man to form the

Wait, weren't they the communist super villains who helped Vietcong in the Vietnam war? Isn't that really dated?

Plus why would Radioactive Man still be a villain? That's the problem with the character, he represents China-US relations in the 1960s, instead of today. Plus do you really think Radioactive Man as some cliched bad guy would be a good way to get into the Chinese market?

Radioactive Man should be more like anti hero, he is a Chinese patriot

I don't mean to be a spoil sport, but let's face, the lame cold War propaganda tool villains are a fad that is past left in the past. They are not even good propaganda characters, I don't see how attacking Iron Man promotes a workers revolution or furthers the international dictatorship of the proletariat.

Most of them don't seem to have a personality beyond "I am a communist, so I must destroy [inset hero's name here]." Its hardly an Orwell level criticism of communism.

This why Iron Man's rogues gallery kinda sucked in the first place, it was tied to the Cold War and whenever Marvel tried to Cold war related stories, but was usually lame, viewing the cold War through a rather childish and naive lens, with unironic cliched bad guys and very simplistic black and white story telling style. That is why these characters have not aged well.